BIG box stores continue to gobble up space on 23rd Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues.

The latest arrival: appliance giant P.C. Richard, which has taken 40,000 square-feet on the ground, concourse and second floor of 53 West 23rd St., opposite both Best Buy and the incoming Home Depot.

“A lot of national companies will now fill in along 23rd Street,” predicted James Buslik of Adams & Co., who along with Alan Bonett, repped both sides of the deal, which is worth more than $1.5 million a year.

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Boston Properties signed two more law firms to Times Square Tower, bringing the tower’s occupany to 35 percent.

The building, a 1.2 million square-footer, is located on the south side of 42nd St. between Broadway and Seventh Ave. Manatt Phelps & Phillips will relocate its offices at 1675 Broadway to 85,468 square-feet on part of the third and the full 22nd-24th floors, with an option for the 21st.

Manatt was represented by Mitchell Steir, Chairman and CEO along with Howard Nottingham, Matthew Barlow, and John Mambrino of Studley.

“Location, quality of product, overall transaction structure and flexibility were many of the ingrediants that led to Times Square Tower being their new home,” said Steir. New Jersey based Pitney Hardin Kipp & Szuch will take the other lease, and occupy 46,339 square-feet on the 19th and 20th floors.

They were brought to TST by Joseph Thanhauser, Chairman, and Gordon Ogden of Byrnam Wood.

The two law firms will join O’Melveny & Myers on the 26th-34th floors and Clarendon National Insurance Company on 35-37. The building will open in late March.

Boston Properties was represented in the transactions by John Powers, Peter Turchin, Tim Gibson and Yasmine Uzmez of CB Richard Ellis.

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A group led by developer Arun Bhatia quietly bought 137 Wooster St. from Hyatt Hotels for $9.8 million and plans to create about 15 luxury condos.

Jon Epstein, Charles Kingsley and Yoav Oelsner of Cushman & Wakefield acted for Hyatt Hotels and brought in the buyer.

“A few years ago I would have never considered doing 15 apartments,” said Bhatia, who paid $263 a foot for the space.

The developer of The Strand, The Capri and other luxury properties complained about the many restrictions and construction costs that are piling onto the rising cost of land.

Bhatia said the Pritzers were originally going to use the site to create a residential building for the entire family.

Now Bhatia will apply under the SoHo new zoning rules for the eight-story project that will also face Broadway and is half a block south of Houston St.

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To be nearer its 1411 Broadway headquarters, Jones Apparel Group is consolidating from 463 Seventh into 82,702 square-feet at 498 Seventh Ave.

The deal is a sublease from Mass Mutual’s Oppenheimer Funds. The Cushman & Wakefield team of Stuart Romanoff, Amy Fox and David Rowley still has two, 18,000 square-foot blocks left to sublease at 498 Seventh.